In another quick shift in the hyper-competitive performance video card market, AMD sends word this afternoon that they are enacting some price cuts that will be taking effect later this week. This latest round of price cuts comes hot on the heels of last week’s launch of the GeForce GTX 660 Ti, which saw NVIDIA introduce their first 28nm performance video card at $299.

The bulk of the cuts here will be for the 7800 series, where the 7870 in particular is finding itself somewhat displaced after the launch of the GTX 660 Ti. The $299 660 Ti isn’t necessarily in direct competition with the already-cheaper 7870 – which had a street price of around $279 last week – and since AMD had already quietly shuffled prices around ahead of the GTX 660 Ti launch, we weren’t expecting any further changes here. But it would appear that the gap between the 7870 and GTX 660 Ti is closer than AMD would like.

As a result the 7870 will be getting a slight price cut to push prices towards $249. This would make the card a full $50 cheaper than the GTX 660 Ti, which is apparently the kind of leverage AMD wants right now.

Meanwhile because the 7870 is getting a price cut, so is the 7850. AMD is expecting the street prices on the 2GB 7850 to fall to around $209 after the price cuts take effect, putting it $40 below the newly repriced 7870. The 2GB 7850 has been averaging $239 in the past week, so this would represent a price cut of around $30. Meanwhile the extremely rare 1GB version of the card would end up below $200, though given how few of those cards exist it’s hard to say if it will hit AMD’s $189 price target.

Alongside those price cuts the 7800 series will be receiving a new game bundle promotion in a few weeks. The AMD Gaming Evolved title Sleeping Dogs will be AMD’s latest bundle, replacing the outgoing DiRT Showdown bundle. This will sit opposite NVIDIA's existing Borderlands 2 promotion, which went live last week. As with past bundles this is being done at a retailer level, so it’s primarily geared towards online retailers (e.g. Newegg) that can quickly bundle vouchers with new cards.

Meanwhile, along with the 7800 series the 7950 is also technically getting a price cut. We say “technically” because AMD seems to be rubber stamping price cuts that have already happened. The 7950 has been readily available below its $349 MSRP for quite some time now, and AMD’s new MSRP of $319 reflects the price of cards that are already available.

Finally, it should be noted that despite AMD’s official announcement we wouldn’t be all that surprised if only a few cards ended up reaching these new MSRPs. AMD lists their MSRPs as “starting at”, which means that AMD is listing the price of the cheapest card. This is largely how the previous round of price cuts played out, so pickings right at these new MSRPs may be slim.

HD7950B wins in Crysis Warhead, Metro 2033. The card are tied in Dirt 3, 1 fps separates them in Batman AC. However, in Skyrim mods weren't used and both Skyrim and Batman AC can work well on a 7950 with 8xMSAA. Like I showed you earlier, once you add mods and higher MSAA for better image quality, the 7950 will win in Skyrim, Dirt 3 and Batman AC as well.

It's not a clear win for the 660Ti at all. In fact the main reason the 660Ti even looks good is because Zotac AMP! 660Ti OC / MSI Power Edition 660Ti were used.

Take a 7950 @ 1100-1150mhz and it'll be at the top of those benchmarks in every game over a GTX670 besides Portal 2 SSAA. Portal 2 is an exception for SSAA.

You don't see the benchmarks in 2560x1600 in AT's review? That's not 1080P. You're not seriously telling me you don't know what 1080P is are you? I'm not even sure how to respond to that.Check the comments in the article, click VIEW ALL comments and read page 4. And #1 don't bother pointing me to sites not in english, and #2 they're useless if they don't tell me the speeds, models etc of whatever is being tested. Read the "wall" of text. I used half of Anandtechs OWN tests and statements against them...Did YOU read the review? I quoted Ryan at least a dozen times FROM that article. He really made it too easy. He replied they test in 2560x1600 because of some monitor that "enthusiasts" can now buy under $400. But only if you order from Korea or New Zealand from websites that "Just Started" on Amazon...LOL. Their website (the only one with reviews) has a blank Faq and About page...ROFL. Their email is a gmail account and they have no contact#. But Ryan, says this is a popular monitor with Enthusiasts and newegg nor amazon sell it, and it can't be bought in the USA. Did you read any of our exchange or just trolling? Pointing me to sites in german that have no explanation of how the test machine or what cards are in it, or what speeds they did the tests at do me no good and are useless. Stop wasting my time. As Ryan said, the 7950B chips are REJECTS which is why they are 1.25v. Did you READ Anandtech's articles? You seem to be able to write in english you should be able to READ it.

Zotac speeds can be bought for $299 check newegg.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...Core Clock: 1019MHzBoost Clock: 1097MHzMemory can be boosted FAR above 6.6ghz shown alreadyhttp://hardocp.com/article/2012/08/21/galaxy_gefor...7.71ghz. Easy to do 6.6ghz and they did it with a 3gb card not 2gb (less chips is easier to OC).Knowing this, why would you NOT compare Zotac benchmarks when most cards out of the box will do these speeds and higher easily. Hardocp got their card to 1300mhz! You keep quoting 1150mhz for 7950's. It's tough to even buy a Default clocked 660. 1150 on your chip RUNS HOT and chews up watts. 80 watts more to be exact:http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7950-overc...138watts vs. 217watts at 1.25v. That's what it took and you can keep your hot chip thanks.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6152/amd-announces-n...Ryan (quoted many times in my wall to him :)) is quoted as saying they are HOT REJECTS in their boost review. Sorry."These numbers paint an interesting picture, albeit not one that is particularly rosy. For the 7970 AMD was already working with top bin Tahiti GPUs, so to make a 7970GE they just needed to apply a bit more voltage and call it a day. The 7950 on the other hand is largely composed of salvaged GPUs that failed to meet 7970 specifications. GPUs that failed due to damaged units aren’t such a big problem here, but GPUs that failed to meet clockspeed targets are another matter. As a result of the fact that AMD is working with salvaged GPUs, AMD has to apply a lot more voltage to a 7950 to guarantee that those poorly clocking GPUs will correctly hit the 925MHz boost clock."

There won't be many old 7950's left soon...LOL. Welcome to your boost chips :) Deboost chips? The tahiti chips were BINNED to get 1.125v default (660's are .987) and your rejects are 1.25v. Good luck hitting 1150 without heating your house. Your top clock is the boost clock out of the box, where as hardocp shows, the 660 will do another 100 past that all on it's own...LOL. 1300mhz after they changed it to 1200. That's not a limit either, they'll go to whatever is safe.

http://www.behardware.com/articles/853-18/roundup-...Look at the chart. 11 7950 cards. Only 2 hit 1200 and needed a heck of a lot of volts to do it. 1.275? Jeez."The maximum clock on the Radeon HD 7900s generally seems to be between 1125 and 1200 MHz when the GPU voltage is adjusted."Not good, and those are not BOOST chips that already need 1.25v for 925 reliably. Keep dreaming. Anandtech's words not mine.

Anyway, you (eventually) cite how hard it is to get a 7950 OCed to 1150, but yet you still rely on AT's benches comparing heavily-overclocked 660Ti cards against a STOCK 7950 card? Even a few mhz bumps would do loads better (as shown by the slightly OCed 7950B marks).

What I don't get is why AT insists on reviewing extremely OCed cards, but lines them up with non-OCed competitor parts? It's like comparing an OCed i5-3570K@4.8Ghz against AMD's stock lineup.Reply